George Washington
was famous for
his false wooden
choppers
but before the advent
of porcelain false teeth
dentures were often
made from teeth
pulled from the dead.
The American Civil War
and the piled up corpses from the carnage
yielded an admirable supply
being shipped by the barrel load
to the old country.
Elderly English gents
smiling
with dead men’s teeth
smiling with someone else’s
smile
who couldn’t smile
no more.
History never smiles
on the defeated.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Other than the fact that Georgie Boy did NOT wear wooden teeth (I wonder where that one came from? ? Maybe English Gents not wanting Americans to appear too smart? ? ?) , this is a poem that makes my skin crawl. That picture of men smiling with Dead Men's Teeth is worthy of a story by EA Poe....morbidly horrific.